Graphic medicine: Introduction to a new genre
Place: FU Berlin
Conception: PathoGraphics team
Plakat (PDF)
Lecture:
The talk will introduce the comics genre called ‘graphic medicine’, one of the fields that is examined closely in the PathoGraphics research project. Susan Squier will discuss the issues this genre poses for us as humanities scholars and describe its connections to illness narratives or pathographies (and the related field of narrative medicine). The lecture will give a sense of what it is like to read a work of graphic medicine as well as what it can bring to a range of communities by taking a close look at one recently published work, Peter Dunlap-Shohl’s My Degeneration (2015). It will conclude with some words on the challenges posed by the field of graphic medicine.
Seminar:
Participants are asked to read two essays, one by Amelia DeFalco and one by Ian Williams, on comics and affect and on comics and illness iconography (these texts will be provided upon email registration). In the Seminar, we will discuss the field of graphic medicine, look closely at an example by Roz Chast, and then engage in some graphic practice ourselves. Participants are therefore asked to bring a pencil, an eraser, and (if possible) a sketch book or some unlined paper.